


Learner

by randomcheeses



Series: What if? [12]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-23
Updated: 2010-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-11 05:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomcheeses/pseuds/randomcheeses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is not even an echo of true sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Learner

The great white plain of existence in which It dwells is silent and cold. There is not even an echo of true sound.

It has all the knowledge It could wish, but there is nothing here. Nothing which It can engage with, nothing with which It could put it's knowledge to use. Nothing it can create or destroy.

And then the doorway opens for the first time. The human who appears is grey-haired and has saggy skin. It learns that this means the human is old, sixty years at least.

Sixty years does not seem like such a long time to It.

The human arrogantly demands It's name. Once It understands the concept, It decides that one name is not enough. It is Truth, It is God, It is One, and All.

The human demands more, insisting that It return something that It did not take. For the first time, It feels anger. It informs the human that It does not have what he is seeking.

The human also becomes angry and demands that It surrender the knowledge of how to obtain what he seeks.

It does not have this knowledge. Nothing does. But something about the human repulses It. His anger and arrogance, his confidence in his own superiority over It, so sure that he is right. So It gives him some knowledge. For a fair price.

Over time, more humans appear. All arrogant and angry. All demanding things from It that It did not take. It deals with them the same way, punishing them for their intrusion into It's home, for their arrogant demands.

As time goes on It thinks, why does It still do this? It knows humans now. It knows that they all come with the same thing in mind. Why does It bother to punish them, when the punishment usually kills them. Punishment is meant to teach something. But what can It teach if the humans It punishes are dead?

When It begins to punish a human who had not demanded anything, not even opened the door through which he came, It realises that It has become a creature of habit.

Like the humans, It had become arrogant and thought there was nothing that It had left to learn. It decides not to leave this human with a bleeding wound. Unlike humans, It, at least, can learn.

But It does still take a small something. After all, intentionally or not, the human had still come uninvited.

Then a human that It punished returns to retrieve someone that he left behind. He smiles at It, and for the first time It can remember, It is given correct payment for what is asked. It smiles back at him and thinks that perhaps humans do learn after all.


End file.
